“If you’re not going to live long enough for a trial, why does it matter if you confess or not?” That stops him, and Alice keeps going, pressing her advantage. “Why go through all this trouble if you aren’t going to make your mission crystal clear in the end? I’m new here. So is Bree. Tell us something we couldn’t learn from anyone else.”

Jonas’s eyes flutter. “The Legendborn cycle saves human lives while destroying them in the same breath. I chose to become Legendborn, but Lydia didn’t. And she was torn apart by a pack of hellhounds on her nineteenth birthday. The only way to stop that from happening to anyone else… the only way to stop the cycle is to kill the Scion of Arthur while she is Awakened and end the Spell.”

“That only works if a Shadowborn kills Bree,” Sel hisses. “That’s why the goruchel is here.”

“But after Sel disabled your assassin, you attempted to kill Bree yourself,” William says. “Why? Your blade wouldn’t have ended the Spell.”

Jonas avoids my gaze, mumbling, “No. But her death would weaken the Table. Disorganize you. Keep you all from fighting, dying, if only for a little bit longer.”

Sel rolls his eyes. “I don’t know what Scions were like in your day, traitor, but weakening this Table wouldn’t do a damn thing to stop them from fighting! It would only make them more vulnerable when they do.”

“And you’d risk leaving humanity undefended,” I say, pushing past the pain of speaking. I’m too inflamed at everything Jonas is saying, at what he’s suggesting is the better path, to remain silent.

“If this goruchel had killed Bree… you’d let the Shadowborn rule?” William replies, confusion twisting his features. “So that even more Lydias can die, this time without the skills or abilities to defend themselves?”

“We can’t be everywhere at once as it is!” Jonas shouts. “Humans are killed by demons in the middle of deserts, on islands, in the arctic… places we aren’t stationed or don’t patrol!”

“So, if you can’t stop all evil, there’s no point in stopping any evil, is that it?” Sel asks, his voice low and cold.

“You get to be as old as I am, Merlin, and the little and big evils start to blur together,” Jonas says with a chuckle. “This was the best and only opportunity I’d ever get to end it on my terms.”

I push to my knees, then to standing. “You waited until Sel was gone, and you knew he was cuffed,” I say, piecing it all together. “You waited until William and Alice were both in the shower. You wanted me alone.”

He’d even had music playing to muffle the sound.